In the early part of the twentieth century, interpretations of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, in combination with the new science of eugenics, represented an influential attempt to formulate a new code ...
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In the early part of the twentieth century, interpretations of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, in combination with the new science of eugenics, represented an influential attempt to formulate a new code of morals. In his book on Nietzsche, George Chatterton-Hill argued that Nietzsche's masters and slaves constituted two separate races: the masters representing an aristocracy; and the slaves representing degenerates. Chatterton-Hill typified early Nietzschean interpretations, which concurred with widespread theories of social degeneration that emerged in the Edwardian period in the face of the rise of organised labour, feminism, technologisation, urbanisation, and imperial decline. Aside from Chatterton-Hill, other Nietzscheans include Oscar Levy and Anthony Mario Ludovici. This chapter discusses the connections between interpretations of Nietzsche and the eugenics movement in Britain in the first decades of the twentieth century, examining in particular what the exponents of the two movements actually said.Less

Nietzsche and Eugenics

Published in print: 2002-02-01

In the early part of the twentieth century, interpretations of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, in combination with the new science of eugenics, represented an influential attempt to formulate a new code of morals. In his book on Nietzsche, George Chatterton-Hill argued that Nietzsche's masters and slaves constituted two separate races: the masters representing an aristocracy; and the slaves representing degenerates. Chatterton-Hill typified early Nietzschean interpretations, which concurred with widespread theories of social degeneration that emerged in the Edwardian period in the face of the rise of organised labour, feminism, technologisation, urbanisation, and imperial decline. Aside from Chatterton-Hill, other Nietzscheans include Oscar Levy and Anthony Mario Ludovici. This chapter discusses the connections between interpretations of Nietzsche and the eugenics movement in Britain in the first decades of the twentieth century, examining in particular what the exponents of the two movements actually said.

This chapter argues that the worst dreams of Plato's Socrates are recurring in the context of the ethically underdetermined scene of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's reception history. The new ...
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This chapter argues that the worst dreams of Plato's Socrates are recurring in the context of the ethically underdetermined scene of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's reception history. The new Nietzscheans are right to insist that Nietzsche's texts are signed to more than one concept, but one cannot take his plurality, his styles, his masks, and nomadism to imply an unselving ‘innocence of becoming’. The founder of logocentrism and the so-called ‘counter-philosopher’ implicate themselves in the problems of any mixed discourse. Moreover, the signature is considered as a meditatio generis futuri and as a contract drawn up with readers present, readers future, and readers who will read the work of a dead or otherwise unresponsive author. The chapter then describes the generic problematics of the signatory contact an author draws up with his near-contemporaneous audience and the textual estate that was formerly known as posterity.Less

The Textual Estate: Nietzsche and Authorial Responsibility

Seán Burke

Published in print: 2008-01-23

This chapter argues that the worst dreams of Plato's Socrates are recurring in the context of the ethically underdetermined scene of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's reception history. The new Nietzscheans are right to insist that Nietzsche's texts are signed to more than one concept, but one cannot take his plurality, his styles, his masks, and nomadism to imply an unselving ‘innocence of becoming’. The founder of logocentrism and the so-called ‘counter-philosopher’ implicate themselves in the problems of any mixed discourse. Moreover, the signature is considered as a meditatio generis futuri and as a contract drawn up with readers present, readers future, and readers who will read the work of a dead or otherwise unresponsive author. The chapter then describes the generic problematics of the signatory contact an author draws up with his near-contemporaneous audience and the textual estate that was formerly known as posterity.

This chapter evaluates the biography of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and elaborates on his particular thoughts on musical philosophy. Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844 in Röcken. Three phases can ...
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This chapter evaluates the biography of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and elaborates on his particular thoughts on musical philosophy. Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844 in Röcken. Three phases can be recognized in Nietzsche's philosophy, although it should be noted that the differences are much less momentous than they are sometimes considered to be. For Nietzsche, the given cultural circumstances played a decisive role in addressing the content of the artworks that were developed. The philosophy of music occupied a larger place in Nietzsche's early work. His theories of opera and of the music dramas of the future were based on his attitude toward life. The most direct relationship of Nietzsche's philosophy of music to a music philosophy of the twentieth century occurred with Martin Heidegger. His philosophy of music affected how classical philologists have understood tragedy.Less

Nietzsche

Stefan Lorenz Sorgner

Published in print: 2011-01-30

This chapter evaluates the biography of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and elaborates on his particular thoughts on musical philosophy. Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844 in Röcken. Three phases can be recognized in Nietzsche's philosophy, although it should be noted that the differences are much less momentous than they are sometimes considered to be. For Nietzsche, the given cultural circumstances played a decisive role in addressing the content of the artworks that were developed. The philosophy of music occupied a larger place in Nietzsche's early work. His theories of opera and of the music dramas of the future were based on his attitude toward life. The most direct relationship of Nietzsche's philosophy of music to a music philosophy of the twentieth century occurred with Martin Heidegger. His philosophy of music affected how classical philologists have understood tragedy.

This chapter explores the expression of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's untimely within a Deleuzian philosophy of history. Gilles Deleuze's use of the untimely appeared to be not only a departure but a ...
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This chapter explores the expression of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's untimely within a Deleuzian philosophy of history. Gilles Deleuze's use of the untimely appeared to be not only a departure but a productive misappropriation of Nietzsche, and as such a creation that might itself suggest a new time to come. It then investigates how Nietzsche diagnosed European degradation in the advent of ‘modern historical cultivation’ and ‘history as an objective science’. Nietzsche reports three types of history that form relations either in the service or disservice of life: monumental history, antiquarian history and critical history. Deleuze's interaction with Nietzsche's analysis of history and the untimely is explained. A philosophy of history should emerge in Deleuze that is not only more than a critique of facile historicism, but also a crucial part of his general philosophy of time.Less

Deleuze's Untimely: Uses and Abuses in the Appropriation of Nietzsche

Published in print: 2009-03-12

This chapter explores the expression of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's untimely within a Deleuzian philosophy of history. Gilles Deleuze's use of the untimely appeared to be not only a departure but a productive misappropriation of Nietzsche, and as such a creation that might itself suggest a new time to come. It then investigates how Nietzsche diagnosed European degradation in the advent of ‘modern historical cultivation’ and ‘history as an objective science’. Nietzsche reports three types of history that form relations either in the service or disservice of life: monumental history, antiquarian history and critical history. Deleuze's interaction with Nietzsche's analysis of history and the untimely is explained. A philosophy of history should emerge in Deleuze that is not only more than a critique of facile historicism, but also a crucial part of his general philosophy of time.

Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's story ends as the narration begins. It is believed that Nietzsche is an unfortunate gambler in the lottery which Bernard Williams called ‘moral luck’. Driven ...
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Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's story ends as the narration begins. It is believed that Nietzsche is an unfortunate gambler in the lottery which Bernard Williams called ‘moral luck’. Driven by ill health, and suspecting that the time left to him was short, the cynic would see this ‘Nietzsche’ as making a last throw of the dice in his titanic struggle for recognition. A central doctrine of Nietzsche's philosophy is that one must love one's fate, even to the extent of willing it to return eternally. He knows Dr Josef Mengele. Neither man has ever addressed the other by their baptismal names. Two legends compete as to the final moments of his destiny, the close of his day.Less

Friedrich Nietzsche in Auschwitz,1 or the Posthumous Return of the Author

Seán Burke

Published in print: 2008-01-23

Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's story ends as the narration begins. It is believed that Nietzsche is an unfortunate gambler in the lottery which Bernard Williams called ‘moral luck’. Driven by ill health, and suspecting that the time left to him was short, the cynic would see this ‘Nietzsche’ as making a last throw of the dice in his titanic struggle for recognition. A central doctrine of Nietzsche's philosophy is that one must love one's fate, even to the extent of willing it to return eternally. He knows Dr Josef Mengele. Neither man has ever addressed the other by their baptismal names. Two legends compete as to the final moments of his destiny, the close of his day.

This chapter examines how Oscar Levy was drawn to Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and his work on race and eugenics in Britain. Levy edited the first complete English edition of Nietzsche's Collected ...
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This chapter examines how Oscar Levy was drawn to Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and his work on race and eugenics in Britain. Levy edited the first complete English edition of Nietzsche's Collected Works (1909–1913) and drove forward the reception of Nietzsche in Britain. He also played a major role in the intellectual development of a whole ‘school’ of thinkers, centred mainly around A. R. Orage, the editor of New Age, an avant-garde weekly journal. Many of Levy's ideas led him into the arms of some of Britain's most eccentric extremists, including George Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers. Levy was drawn to the theory of degeneration and exerted an influence on Anthony Mario Ludovici, with whom he shared a common interpretation of Nietzsche. But while Levy stressed the role of moral ideas, Ludovici placed more emphasis on breeding and race. The chapter also discusses Levy's ideas about Christianity and Judaism, slave morality, civilisation, fascism, and Nazism.Less

Oscar Levy: A Nietzschean Vision

Published in print: 2002-02-01

This chapter examines how Oscar Levy was drawn to Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and his work on race and eugenics in Britain. Levy edited the first complete English edition of Nietzsche's Collected Works (1909–1913) and drove forward the reception of Nietzsche in Britain. He also played a major role in the intellectual development of a whole ‘school’ of thinkers, centred mainly around A. R. Orage, the editor of New Age, an avant-garde weekly journal. Many of Levy's ideas led him into the arms of some of Britain's most eccentric extremists, including George Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers. Levy was drawn to the theory of degeneration and exerted an influence on Anthony Mario Ludovici, with whom he shared a common interpretation of Nietzsche. But while Levy stressed the role of moral ideas, Ludovici placed more emphasis on breeding and race. The chapter also discusses Levy's ideas about Christianity and Judaism, slave morality, civilisation, fascism, and Nazism.

This chapter analytically counterpoises the oral and graphic signatures more Aristotelico as also in a general ethical meditation, before reviving the question of agency as it reflects dialectic's ...
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This chapter analytically counterpoises the oral and graphic signatures more Aristotelico as also in a general ethical meditation, before reviving the question of agency as it reflects dialectic's uncertain status as a discourse stranded between its own determinations of science and muthos. The dynamic of play and seriousness, of game and gravity, which the Phaedrus weaves around the question of writing, is motivated by a desire to guard against the game becoming dangerous, the discursive mask masquerading as the man, the ludic being taken for the grave, the playful careening into the heinous, and the fatal. The closing phase of the chapter reviews the authorship as the unnameable concept on which the argument of the Phaedrus turns. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's unique status, his absolutely singular signature, makes him the archetypal figure of the ethics of writing as developed in the Phaedrus.Less

Signature and Authorship in the Phaedrus

Seán Burke

Published in print: 2008-01-23

This chapter analytically counterpoises the oral and graphic signatures more Aristotelico as also in a general ethical meditation, before reviving the question of agency as it reflects dialectic's uncertain status as a discourse stranded between its own determinations of science and muthos. The dynamic of play and seriousness, of game and gravity, which the Phaedrus weaves around the question of writing, is motivated by a desire to guard against the game becoming dangerous, the discursive mask masquerading as the man, the ludic being taken for the grave, the playful careening into the heinous, and the fatal. The closing phase of the chapter reviews the authorship as the unnameable concept on which the argument of the Phaedrus turns. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's unique status, his absolutely singular signature, makes him the archetypal figure of the ethics of writing as developed in the Phaedrus.

The dilemma of exemplarity and mediocrity does not end in the nineteenth century, but assumes a different form in the twentieth century for a variety of reasons. One reason is that the distinction ...
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The dilemma of exemplarity and mediocrity does not end in the nineteenth century, but assumes a different form in the twentieth century for a variety of reasons. One reason is that the distinction between high and low culture slowly began to be questioned and blurred from within high art only after Heinrich Heine's celebration of the “end of the Goethean artistic period” (as the end of idealizing art). The relation between exemplarity and mediocrity was also influenced by the development of the humanities in the second half of the nineteenth century. Another reason is that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel rightly declared that prosaic reality affects all aspects of modern life from economics to politics, from morality to society. Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill addressed the dilemma of mediocrity in power in their respective books Democracy in America (1835/1840) and On Liberty (1859). In Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche recognizes that mediocrity in power necessarily turns into something beyond mediocre.Less

Conclusion

Published in print: 2008-12-11

The dilemma of exemplarity and mediocrity does not end in the nineteenth century, but assumes a different form in the twentieth century for a variety of reasons. One reason is that the distinction between high and low culture slowly began to be questioned and blurred from within high art only after Heinrich Heine's celebration of the “end of the Goethean artistic period” (as the end of idealizing art). The relation between exemplarity and mediocrity was also influenced by the development of the humanities in the second half of the nineteenth century. Another reason is that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel rightly declared that prosaic reality affects all aspects of modern life from economics to politics, from morality to society. Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill addressed the dilemma of mediocrity in power in their respective books Democracy in America (1835/1840) and On Liberty (1859). In Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche recognizes that mediocrity in power necessarily turns into something beyond mediocre.

In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche declares that when the “man of everyday life” assumes the tragic stage, it spells doom for tragedy—and with it great art. This chapter ...
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In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche declares that when the “man of everyday life” assumes the tragic stage, it spells doom for tragedy—and with it great art. This chapter examines bourgeois tragedy by focusing on Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Hamburg Dramaturgy (1767–1768). In particular, it considers the theoretical underpinnings of lending “dear mediocrity” a tragic nimbus as well as the aesthetic-ethical stakes of wanting to move an audience to feel compassion. The chapter discusses Lessing's theory as well as his correspondence with Friedrich Nicolai and Moses Mendelssohn. It also analyzes bourgeois tragedy's rejection of sublime, public heroes in favor of common, domestic protagonists and how it aesthetically enacts the end of the age of heroes while ushering in the age of the common man. Finally, the chapter explores how Lessing establishes theater as the educative arena for converting an average audience into an exemplary public and considers his view that it is the common hero, not the exceptional one, who instigates exemplarity.Less

The Average Audience (Lessing on Bourgeois Tragedy)

Published in print: 2008-12-11

In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche declares that when the “man of everyday life” assumes the tragic stage, it spells doom for tragedy—and with it great art. This chapter examines bourgeois tragedy by focusing on Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Hamburg Dramaturgy (1767–1768). In particular, it considers the theoretical underpinnings of lending “dear mediocrity” a tragic nimbus as well as the aesthetic-ethical stakes of wanting to move an audience to feel compassion. The chapter discusses Lessing's theory as well as his correspondence with Friedrich Nicolai and Moses Mendelssohn. It also analyzes bourgeois tragedy's rejection of sublime, public heroes in favor of common, domestic protagonists and how it aesthetically enacts the end of the age of heroes while ushering in the age of the common man. Finally, the chapter explores how Lessing establishes theater as the educative arena for converting an average audience into an exemplary public and considers his view that it is the common hero, not the exceptional one, who instigates exemplarity.

Dan Stone

Published in print:

2002

Published Online:

June 2013

ISBN:

9780853239871

eISBN:

9781846312694

Item type:

book

Publisher:

Liverpool University Press

DOI:

10.5949/UPO9781846312694

Subject:

History, History of Ideas

Before World War I there existed an intellectual turmoil in Britain as great as any in Germany, France, or Russia, as the debates over Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and eugenics in the context of early ...
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Before World War I there existed an intellectual turmoil in Britain as great as any in Germany, France, or Russia, as the debates over Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and eugenics in the context of early modernism reveal. With the rise of fascism after 1918, these debates became more ideologically driven, with science and vitalist philosophy being hailed in some quarters as saviours from bourgeois decadence, vituperated in others as heralding the onset of barbarism. This book looks at several of the leading Nietzscheans and eugenicists, and challenges the long-cherished belief that British intellectuals were fundamentally uninterested in race. The result is a study of radical ideas that are conventionally written out of histories of the politics and culture of the period.Less

Dan Stone

Published in print: 2002-02-01

Before World War I there existed an intellectual turmoil in Britain as great as any in Germany, France, or Russia, as the debates over Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and eugenics in the context of early modernism reveal. With the rise of fascism after 1918, these debates became more ideologically driven, with science and vitalist philosophy being hailed in some quarters as saviours from bourgeois decadence, vituperated in others as heralding the onset of barbarism. This book looks at several of the leading Nietzscheans and eugenicists, and challenges the long-cherished belief that British intellectuals were fundamentally uninterested in race. The result is a study of radical ideas that are conventionally written out of histories of the politics and culture of the period.

This introductory chapter raises questions concerning the context, meaning, and significance of three interrelated concepts in Nietzsche’s work: the earth, great events, and great politics. It argues ...
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This introductory chapter raises questions concerning the context, meaning, and significance of three interrelated concepts in Nietzsche’s work: the earth, great events, and great politics. It argues that these are indeed closely related ideas and that much previous writing and thinking about these Nietzschean concepts has been unduly limited in not recognizing this. Earth is not only a phenomenological concept but a political one, opposed to the Hegelian notion of world-history, in which the state is God’s march through history. As the immanent site of mobile human habitation, the earth – Nietzsche sometimes speaks of the “human-earth” -- is distinct from a world of nation-states which Hegel and the Hegelians of Nietzsche’s day saw as the telos of history. These questions are introduced and tentatively explored: What then did Nietzsche mean when he said that he was initiating a “great politics” on or of the earth? What are the “great events” that he speaks of if they are events of the earth rather than the world?Less

Introduction: Toward Earth’s “Great Politics”

Gary Shapiro

Published in print: 2016-09-09

This introductory chapter raises questions concerning the context, meaning, and significance of three interrelated concepts in Nietzsche’s work: the earth, great events, and great politics. It argues that these are indeed closely related ideas and that much previous writing and thinking about these Nietzschean concepts has been unduly limited in not recognizing this. Earth is not only a phenomenological concept but a political one, opposed to the Hegelian notion of world-history, in which the state is God’s march through history. As the immanent site of mobile human habitation, the earth – Nietzsche sometimes speaks of the “human-earth” -- is distinct from a world of nation-states which Hegel and the Hegelians of Nietzsche’s day saw as the telos of history. These questions are introduced and tentatively explored: What then did Nietzsche mean when he said that he was initiating a “great politics” on or of the earth? What are the “great events” that he speaks of if they are events of the earth rather than the world?

This concluding chapter rereads Nietzsche’s notorious text The Antichrist through the lenses of political theology, mediated in part by his affinities and exchanges with theologian Franz Overbeck. It ...
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This concluding chapter rereads Nietzsche’s notorious text The Antichrist through the lenses of political theology, mediated in part by his affinities and exchanges with theologian Franz Overbeck. It reviews Nietzsche’s reductive natural history of religions, emphasizing their geographical and ethnic roots. Beyond this, he contests both a naively “secular” world-view and the Hegelian claim that modernity has attained a spiritual/secular synthesis. So-called contemporary political secularism, Nietzsche maintains, is still theological, so far as it relies on “world-history,” conceived as a metanarrative culminating in some combination of modern state, market, and Protestantism. “World” is a political notion. Essential to The Antichrist’s polemic against Christianity is its understanding of the political foundations of its predecessor, Judaism, and the politico-theological work of Paul and following Christian thinkers until Constantine’s Christianization of Rome. Earliest Christianity, Nietzsche and Overbeck agree, either lived in a blissful present or expected an imminent end of the world. When developing Christian theology put off the predicted end by hundreds of years, positing Rome as a force warding off the Antichrist, an opening was created for the concept of world-history. The great event and great politics of fully affirming the earth requires demolishing that story from within.Less

Earth, World, Antichrist: Nietzsche after Political Theology

Gary Shapiro

Published in print: 2016-09-09

This concluding chapter rereads Nietzsche’s notorious text The Antichrist through the lenses of political theology, mediated in part by his affinities and exchanges with theologian Franz Overbeck. It reviews Nietzsche’s reductive natural history of religions, emphasizing their geographical and ethnic roots. Beyond this, he contests both a naively “secular” world-view and the Hegelian claim that modernity has attained a spiritual/secular synthesis. So-called contemporary political secularism, Nietzsche maintains, is still theological, so far as it relies on “world-history,” conceived as a metanarrative culminating in some combination of modern state, market, and Protestantism. “World” is a political notion. Essential to The Antichrist’s polemic against Christianity is its understanding of the political foundations of its predecessor, Judaism, and the politico-theological work of Paul and following Christian thinkers until Constantine’s Christianization of Rome. Earliest Christianity, Nietzsche and Overbeck agree, either lived in a blissful present or expected an imminent end of the world. When developing Christian theology put off the predicted end by hundreds of years, positing Rome as a force warding off the Antichrist, an opening was created for the concept of world-history. The great event and great politics of fully affirming the earth requires demolishing that story from within.

This chapter focuses on Nietzsche’s Unmodern Observations, reading these four essays as polemics against late and quasi-Hegelians (especially D.F. Strauss and E. von Hartmann) who posit some version ...
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This chapter focuses on Nietzsche’s Unmodern Observations, reading these four essays as polemics against late and quasi-Hegelians (especially D.F. Strauss and E. von Hartmann) who posit some version of an “end of history” thesis. Nietzsche’s critique is relevant to more recent discussions by thinkers like Alexander Kojève and Francis Fukuyama, which attempt to update the Hegelian argument. Strauss’s smug triumphalism at the consolidation of Bismarck’s Reich is the optimistic side of the position. Hartmann takes the pessimistic, Schopenhauerian view that the “world-process” eventuates both in something like “globalization” and a final realization of the impossibility of human happiness. Nietzsche attempts to save Schopenhauer from such appropriations, praising his alternative to the time’s journalistic philosophers (or “public intellectuals”) who desperately seek to be contemporary. In contrast to the Hegelians and journalistic thinkers, Wagner is celebrated as ushering in a new “great event” of global significance. The chapter concludes by suggesting that Nietzsche’s apotheosis of Wagner was more Hegelian than he realized at the time. While this impasse interrupted the Unmodern series, it set the stage for Nietzsche to develop the concept earth in opposition to world and to rethink the idea of “great events” in that context.Less

Unmodern Thinking: Globalization, the End of History, Great Events

Gary Shapiro

Published in print: 2016-09-09

This chapter focuses on Nietzsche’s Unmodern Observations, reading these four essays as polemics against late and quasi-Hegelians (especially D.F. Strauss and E. von Hartmann) who posit some version of an “end of history” thesis. Nietzsche’s critique is relevant to more recent discussions by thinkers like Alexander Kojève and Francis Fukuyama, which attempt to update the Hegelian argument. Strauss’s smug triumphalism at the consolidation of Bismarck’s Reich is the optimistic side of the position. Hartmann takes the pessimistic, Schopenhauerian view that the “world-process” eventuates both in something like “globalization” and a final realization of the impossibility of human happiness. Nietzsche attempts to save Schopenhauer from such appropriations, praising his alternative to the time’s journalistic philosophers (or “public intellectuals”) who desperately seek to be contemporary. In contrast to the Hegelians and journalistic thinkers, Wagner is celebrated as ushering in a new “great event” of global significance. The chapter concludes by suggesting that Nietzsche’s apotheosis of Wagner was more Hegelian than he realized at the time. While this impasse interrupted the Unmodern series, it set the stage for Nietzsche to develop the concept earth in opposition to world and to rethink the idea of “great events” in that context.

This chapter develops Nietzsche’s analysis of the modern state’s fragility, supposedly the telos of world-history. His observation that the state requires manufactured crises to claim legitimacy is ...
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This chapter develops Nietzsche’s analysis of the modern state’s fragility, supposedly the telos of world-history. His observation that the state requires manufactured crises to claim legitimacy is contextualized with reference to the German “state of exception.” The analysis is amplified by considering views of Carl Schmitt, Giorgio Agamben, and others on parallels between political and theological sovereignty. Given this skeptical take on state and world-history, the chapter turns to Nietzsche’s alternative concept of the earth (or human-earth). It focuses on the complementary perspectives of two paired texts, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil. The first calls for loyalty to the earth as the highest virtue, dramatizes what it could mean to live on the earth, and raises the question of “great events” in relation to the earth. Beyond is read in terms of its historical and political analysis of so-called “peoples and fatherlands.” Nietzsche dispels nationalist ideology, demonstrating that ethnicities and nation-states fail at the coherence and integrity assumed by “world-history.” Rather, he sees the human-earth as inhabited by increasingly nomadic populations and declares that this is the century of the multitude (Menge), a heterogeneous grouping that can be swayed by cultural media.Less

Living on the Earth: States, Nomads, Multitude

Gary Shapiro

Published in print: 2016-09-09

This chapter develops Nietzsche’s analysis of the modern state’s fragility, supposedly the telos of world-history. His observation that the state requires manufactured crises to claim legitimacy is contextualized with reference to the German “state of exception.” The analysis is amplified by considering views of Carl Schmitt, Giorgio Agamben, and others on parallels between political and theological sovereignty. Given this skeptical take on state and world-history, the chapter turns to Nietzsche’s alternative concept of the earth (or human-earth). It focuses on the complementary perspectives of two paired texts, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil. The first calls for loyalty to the earth as the highest virtue, dramatizes what it could mean to live on the earth, and raises the question of “great events” in relation to the earth. Beyond is read in terms of its historical and political analysis of so-called “peoples and fatherlands.” Nietzsche dispels nationalist ideology, demonstrating that ethnicities and nation-states fail at the coherence and integrity assumed by “world-history.” Rather, he sees the human-earth as inhabited by increasingly nomadic populations and declares that this is the century of the multitude (Menge), a heterogeneous grouping that can be swayed by cultural media.

Nietzsche’s Earth articulates the sense of his call to be “true to the earth,” exploring its political dimensions. Triangulating Nietzsche between the nineteenth century European world of competing ...
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Nietzsche’s Earth articulates the sense of his call to be “true to the earth,” exploring its political dimensions. Triangulating Nietzsche between the nineteenth century European world of competing nation states and the changed landscape of more recent times, it argues that this thinker speaks to contemporary themes and questions such as globalization, the so-called end of history, sovereign assumption of emergency powers through states of exception, and the composition of the decisive political body of a diverse, nomadic, and hybrid multitude. The book explores the contrast between two modes of political time: that of the “last humans,” measured out and securitized by debt and insurance, another involving openness to futurity where “philosophers of the future” may vigilantly seize unique opportunities. These discussions put Nietzsche in dialogue with more recent philosophers of the event, including Deleuze, Derrida, Agamben, and Badiou. The study examines Nietzsche’s sketch of a political geoaesthetics of the anthropocene, elucidating Thus Spoke Zarathustra’s celebration of a garden earth. Nietzsche’s Earth concludes by demonstrating that his “philosophy of the Antichrist” should be understood not merely as a challenge to Christian belief but as an immanent critique of traditional political theology, linking the death of God to the fragility of the state. The book constructs a running dialogue between Nietzsche and those thinkers of his time and ours who see the earth through the lenses of a totalizing world-history, on a more or less Hegelian model, involving a hierarchical system of nation-states and an inescapable teleological narrative.Less

Nietzsche's Earth : Great Events, Great Politics

Gary Shapiro

Published in print: 2016-09-09

Nietzsche’s Earth articulates the sense of his call to be “true to the earth,” exploring its political dimensions. Triangulating Nietzsche between the nineteenth century European world of competing nation states and the changed landscape of more recent times, it argues that this thinker speaks to contemporary themes and questions such as globalization, the so-called end of history, sovereign assumption of emergency powers through states of exception, and the composition of the decisive political body of a diverse, nomadic, and hybrid multitude. The book explores the contrast between two modes of political time: that of the “last humans,” measured out and securitized by debt and insurance, another involving openness to futurity where “philosophers of the future” may vigilantly seize unique opportunities. These discussions put Nietzsche in dialogue with more recent philosophers of the event, including Deleuze, Derrida, Agamben, and Badiou. The study examines Nietzsche’s sketch of a political geoaesthetics of the anthropocene, elucidating Thus Spoke Zarathustra’s celebration of a garden earth. Nietzsche’s Earth concludes by demonstrating that his “philosophy of the Antichrist” should be understood not merely as a challenge to Christian belief but as an immanent critique of traditional political theology, linking the death of God to the fragility of the state. The book constructs a running dialogue between Nietzsche and those thinkers of his time and ours who see the earth through the lenses of a totalizing world-history, on a more or less Hegelian model, involving a hierarchical system of nation-states and an inescapable teleological narrative.

This book examines the reasons for the failure of fascism in Britain and suggests that British proto-fascist ideas may be found in large part in the Nietzsche and eugenics movements representing the ...
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This book examines the reasons for the failure of fascism in Britain and suggests that British proto-fascist ideas may be found in large part in the Nietzsche and eugenics movements representing the ‘extremes of Englishness’. The phrase ‘extremes of Englishness’ implies that the ideas of the writers discussed in this book, particularly Oscar Levy and Anthony Mario Ludovici, indicate ways of thinking which, when combined, give rise to an indigenous proto-fascism. Levy's Nietzschean critique of an effete western ethic and Ludovici's call for a ‘masculine renaissance’ are just two examples of elements of a reactionary, sometimes revolutionary-reactionary, ideology which, in combination, come very close to satisfying the criteria that constitute fascism. The book also considers the reception of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche in Britain and how the early Nietzscheans are linked to eugenics, a scientific attempt to manipulate human breeding patterns with the aim of producing a stronger race.Less

Introduction: The Extremes of Englishness

Published in print: 2002-02-01

This book examines the reasons for the failure of fascism in Britain and suggests that British proto-fascist ideas may be found in large part in the Nietzsche and eugenics movements representing the ‘extremes of Englishness’. The phrase ‘extremes of Englishness’ implies that the ideas of the writers discussed in this book, particularly Oscar Levy and Anthony Mario Ludovici, indicate ways of thinking which, when combined, give rise to an indigenous proto-fascism. Levy's Nietzschean critique of an effete western ethic and Ludovici's call for a ‘masculine renaissance’ are just two examples of elements of a reactionary, sometimes revolutionary-reactionary, ideology which, in combination, come very close to satisfying the criteria that constitute fascism. The book also considers the reception of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche in Britain and how the early Nietzscheans are linked to eugenics, a scientific attempt to manipulate human breeding patterns with the aim of producing a stronger race.

Nietzsche rethinks and adapts the classical insistence (Stoics, Machiavelli) on the importance of discerning the right time (kairos) and seizing the opportune moment to his analysis of the changing ...
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Nietzsche rethinks and adapts the classical insistence (Stoics, Machiavelli) on the importance of discerning the right time (kairos) and seizing the opportune moment to his analysis of the changing human-earth. Those open to the possibility of great events, the “philosophers of futurity,” must be vigilant, because opportunity is typically fleeting. Beyond’s concluding chapter asks “What is Noble?” One answer is that noble vigilance today specifically requires apotropaic discipline that distances us from the multitude’s passing enthusiasms and illusions. Nietzsche’s concept of multitude is clarified by a contrast with homogeneous masses and by exploring some of its sources in the Gospels and Goethe. A related obstacle to the possibility of seizing the time is the subjection of personal and political time to the philosophico-economic logic of debt and credit. Acculturation to a universal debt economy involves a regularization of time, now measured out or mortgaged in terms of regular payments. Nietzsche analyzes the logic of debt and its temporality in several complementary studies. These include notably Zarathustra’s metahistory of philosophy (“On Redemption”), and the Genealogy’s tracking of debt’s transformations from archaic forms to hyperbolic excesses in state and Christianity, the two bulwarks of “world-history.”Less

Whose Time Is It?: Kairos, Chronos, Debt

Gary Shapiro

Published in print: 2016-09-09

Nietzsche rethinks and adapts the classical insistence (Stoics, Machiavelli) on the importance of discerning the right time (kairos) and seizing the opportune moment to his analysis of the changing human-earth. Those open to the possibility of great events, the “philosophers of futurity,” must be vigilant, because opportunity is typically fleeting. Beyond’s concluding chapter asks “What is Noble?” One answer is that noble vigilance today specifically requires apotropaic discipline that distances us from the multitude’s passing enthusiasms and illusions. Nietzsche’s concept of multitude is clarified by a contrast with homogeneous masses and by exploring some of its sources in the Gospels and Goethe. A related obstacle to the possibility of seizing the time is the subjection of personal and political time to the philosophico-economic logic of debt and credit. Acculturation to a universal debt economy involves a regularization of time, now measured out or mortgaged in terms of regular payments. Nietzsche analyzes the logic of debt and its temporality in several complementary studies. These include notably Zarathustra’s metahistory of philosophy (“On Redemption”), and the Genealogy’s tracking of debt’s transformations from archaic forms to hyperbolic excesses in state and Christianity, the two bulwarks of “world-history.”

Nietzsche's Journey to Sorrento situates the turning point in Nietzsche's philosophy at the moment of his 1876 sabbatical in Sorrento. Nietzsche traveled to Southern Italy, accompanied by his friends ...
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Nietzsche's Journey to Sorrento situates the turning point in Nietzsche's philosophy at the moment of his 1876 sabbatical in Sorrento. Nietzsche traveled to Southern Italy, accompanied by his friends Malwida von Meysenbug and Paul Rée, to recover his health, which was declining in the Northern climate of Basel, where he was a professor of philology. In Sorrento, he underwent a transformative experience that would lead him to renounce his earlier work, highly influenced by the metaphysics of Schopenhauer, and to abandon his professorship at the University of Basel so as to become a true philosopher. Also in Sorrento simultaneously to him was Richard Wagner, previously a figure of towering importance to the philosopher, but who had disappointed him irreparably with the first Bayreuth Festival. It was in Sorrento that Nietzsche saw the composer for the last time and made the definitive decision to forego the metaphysics of the artist, which he had placed so much faith in with The Birth of Tragedy. It is also at this time that he initiated his Philosophy of the Free Spirit, writing the book Things Human, All Too Human. D'Iorio advances the thesis of a continuous development from Nietzsche's early research on the scientific aspects of the pre-Platonic philosophers and this new step in his thinking. The upshot of the overall argument is Nietzsche's new affirmation of life and of all that is human, in the face of the Platonic devaluation of human things, which the philosophical tradition previously tended to support.Less

Nietzsche's Journey to Sorrento : Genesis of the Philosophy of the Free Spirit

Paolo D'Iorio

Published in print: 2016-09-07

Nietzsche's Journey to Sorrento situates the turning point in Nietzsche's philosophy at the moment of his 1876 sabbatical in Sorrento. Nietzsche traveled to Southern Italy, accompanied by his friends Malwida von Meysenbug and Paul Rée, to recover his health, which was declining in the Northern climate of Basel, where he was a professor of philology. In Sorrento, he underwent a transformative experience that would lead him to renounce his earlier work, highly influenced by the metaphysics of Schopenhauer, and to abandon his professorship at the University of Basel so as to become a true philosopher. Also in Sorrento simultaneously to him was Richard Wagner, previously a figure of towering importance to the philosopher, but who had disappointed him irreparably with the first Bayreuth Festival. It was in Sorrento that Nietzsche saw the composer for the last time and made the definitive decision to forego the metaphysics of the artist, which he had placed so much faith in with The Birth of Tragedy. It is also at this time that he initiated his Philosophy of the Free Spirit, writing the book Things Human, All Too Human. D'Iorio advances the thesis of a continuous development from Nietzsche's early research on the scientific aspects of the pre-Platonic philosophers and this new step in his thinking. The upshot of the overall argument is Nietzsche's new affirmation of life and of all that is human, in the face of the Platonic devaluation of human things, which the philosophical tradition previously tended to support.

Questions about the meaning of life have been linked to the history of philosophy. People long to uncover the secrets of the universe and what it means, while seeking a meaningful way to live their ...
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Questions about the meaning of life have been linked to the history of philosophy. People long to uncover the secrets of the universe and what it means, while seeking a meaningful way to live their lives. The nature of a meaningful life might be something people find or something they create, one that is dependent on purposes, values, or ideals. It might be related to happiness. This chapter examines the meaning of life from a philosophical perspective, first by considering the speculations of three nineteenth-century philosophers: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. It then discusses two approaches used to explain the meaning of life: the traditionalist, which includes most of religious belief in the West, and the absurdist or nihilist. It also introduces the idea of purpose in life, the universal plan of God in relation to a meaningful life, absurdity, and nihilism. The chapter concludes with a discussion of meaningfulness in living things.Less

The Meaning of Life : Rephrasing Questions

Irving Singer

Published in print: 2009-12-30

Questions about the meaning of life have been linked to the history of philosophy. People long to uncover the secrets of the universe and what it means, while seeking a meaningful way to live their lives. The nature of a meaningful life might be something people find or something they create, one that is dependent on purposes, values, or ideals. It might be related to happiness. This chapter examines the meaning of life from a philosophical perspective, first by considering the speculations of three nineteenth-century philosophers: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. It then discusses two approaches used to explain the meaning of life: the traditionalist, which includes most of religious belief in the West, and the absurdist or nihilist. It also introduces the idea of purpose in life, the universal plan of God in relation to a meaningful life, absurdity, and nihilism. The chapter concludes with a discussion of meaningfulness in living things.

Given Nietzsche’s loyalty to the earth, his frequent, admiring references to gardens, perhaps forming the core of an aesthetic politics of the earth should be explored. The chapter offers a close ...
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Given Nietzsche’s loyalty to the earth, his frequent, admiring references to gardens, perhaps forming the core of an aesthetic politics of the earth should be explored. The chapter offers a close reading of Zarathustra’s “The Convalescent,” where the protagonist agrees with his animals that the world “awaits him as a garden.” This recognition occurs after he has come to terms with the most appalling aspects of eternal recurrence. Throughout his writings Nietzsche depicts gardens (actual and metaphorical) as exemplary sites of the human-earth, enabling productive cultivation, wide perspectives, and earthly communion free from regularized and mortgaged time. In effect, Nietzsche returns the garden to the high place it held in the mid-eighteenth century formations of modern aesthetics before its idealist demotion. This art form’s place in aesthetics since Kant is reviewed, typical European garden styles Nietzsche knew are comparatively analyzed, and his thought is juxtaposed with more recent phenomenologies of space and place. Nietzsche’s otherwise sketchy urban aesthetics program and his hope for the earth becoming a “great tree” of humanity can then be amplified and understood as in line with both his promised “physiology of aesthetics” and the call for loyalty to the earth.Less

“The World Awaits You as a Garden”: A Political Aesthetic of the Anthropocene?

Gary Shapiro

Published in print: 2016-09-09

Given Nietzsche’s loyalty to the earth, his frequent, admiring references to gardens, perhaps forming the core of an aesthetic politics of the earth should be explored. The chapter offers a close reading of Zarathustra’s “The Convalescent,” where the protagonist agrees with his animals that the world “awaits him as a garden.” This recognition occurs after he has come to terms with the most appalling aspects of eternal recurrence. Throughout his writings Nietzsche depicts gardens (actual and metaphorical) as exemplary sites of the human-earth, enabling productive cultivation, wide perspectives, and earthly communion free from regularized and mortgaged time. In effect, Nietzsche returns the garden to the high place it held in the mid-eighteenth century formations of modern aesthetics before its idealist demotion. This art form’s place in aesthetics since Kant is reviewed, typical European garden styles Nietzsche knew are comparatively analyzed, and his thought is juxtaposed with more recent phenomenologies of space and place. Nietzsche’s otherwise sketchy urban aesthetics program and his hope for the earth becoming a “great tree” of humanity can then be amplified and understood as in line with both his promised “physiology of aesthetics” and the call for loyalty to the earth.